Jim Rutenberg at the New York Times has a great article about President Bush's campaign war room that contains this example of its effectiveness:
After sitting impatiently through what seemed to be a typical stump speech, they found one: Mr. Kerry said he was "proud" of votes by him and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, last fall against the president's requested $87 billion appropriation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a vote that Republicans have used to make a case that Mr. Kerry has been failing to support the troops after voting to authorize the war.I'm sure the Senators who muddled the Vietnam War were proud of their votes, too, but John Kerry may have had a different opinion.
Within an hour or so, Mr. Bush's team, at the campaign's headquarters in a corporate office building in suburban Virginia, across the Potomac River from the White House, had sent a release via e-mail to hundreds of journalists, supporters and campaign surrogates. The e-mail message included the new quote and one from September, when Mr. Kerry implied it would be "irresponsible'' to vote against such spending. The quotation, along with the idea that Mr. Kerry's position on the money had evolved, found its way onto Fox News and into articles in The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press.And this was a relatively slow day in Mr. Bush's war room.
Several journalists who cover Mr. Kerry later said they were too embarrassed to say publicly that it took the Bush operatives to spot what was notable in Mr. Kerry's remarks.
The George W Bush campaign blog has more from the media, but doesn't mention the NYT piece.
